...we know what the right would say. Her opponent would likely make it a major campaign issue. To which a Clinton campaign should say: Bring it on. I think there are reasons to believe that such a position would be fantastic for Clinton politically. In a nutshell, it’s popular. A survey commissioned in 2012 by a pro-leave group found that respondents supported the idea by 63 to 29 percent. Democrats were of course strongly in favor (85-10), but independents were at a still quite favorable 54-34, and even Republicans weren’t against it—they were evenly split at 47-48.

Far from being hammered by the right over such a proposal, I think Clinton could turn the tables. What percentage of women are going to be against this? In the pro-leave group’s poll, it was just 23 percent. Of course the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable are going to go ape, but here we have facts, and the known facts suggest that in California paid leave has not been the nightmare that businesses feared. One study, by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, found that 89 percent of participating businesses reported a positive or no noticeable effect on productivity; 91 percent said the same about profitability and performance; 99 percent said the same about morale. Clinton will be able to find plenty of employers in California, and presumably New Jersey, who will sit in front of a camera for 30 seconds and testify that the law is just fine by them.

I think Hillary's "golden ticket" is waiting for her over at Goldman Sachs.

On the other hand,

The United States is one of only three countries in the world that does not offer a monetary supplement to new mothers on maternity leave from their jobs, according to a United Nations study.

The report, prepared by the UN’s International Labor Organization, found that the only two other nations that do not provide cash benefits during maternity leave are the absolutePersian Gulf monarchy Oman and Papua New Guinea, where violence against women is such an epidemic that 60 percent of men have acknowledged committing rape, according to the UN data.

The world’s other 182 nations surveyed offer new mothers on maternity leave either a government payment – akin to Social Security – or require employers to continue to supply at least some percentage of the woman’s pay.

Paid paternity leave for new fathers is offered in 70 countries. Norway, for instance, recently extended its paternity leave to 14 weeks, the UN found.

Against it for now. Need more evidence. Yes, it's a nice benefit for parents to be but giving people like 14 weeks of paid leave would seem to be a little too onerous on business. I would need more than a couple polls from CA and NJ to be convinced on issues like lost profits...especially with respect to smaller businesses who have smaller margins. Much larger firms could probably absorb the hit, though.

The other data which would be helpful here is whether it would spur child births as our current births per woman ratio is not good enough right now to sustain long term economic growth. While a good benefit, I doubt that would incentivize more births since getting a few months paid is pennies in relation to the investment needed to raise the child over time.

We could always look at the needs of our society through the eyes of something other than profit? Weird, I know. Hell, we could even get really wild and choose to judge value by some rubric other than money? How psycho would that be?

Golden ticket? You think with all the **** going on with our country that Family Paid Leave Act will be on top of every voters list? She needs to backtrack the **** away from anything that is toxic in the name of Obama. She needs to come up with ideas that will get enough people rallied up. This isn't a golden ticket. It is part of many talking points on the campaign trail.

Read the article. A compelling case is made. It polls well, and women in particular would support it with a solid majority. The potential political win is clear.

And just to be clear, the purpose of this thread wasn't to support the policy. There are a lot of issues to consider and a lot of questions to answer. The point of the thread was the potential political implications. Hillary probably won't be bold enough to go for it, but if she did it would be very interesting to see how it played out.

Get er done! Take away welfare for moms who don't work and give it to the ladies who work for a living! great idea.

This will go over cuts head, but some of you may appreciate the impacts of perception on opinions about welfare.

Quote:

Using large-scale survey experiments, Lene Aarøe and Michael Bang Petersen challenge the prevalent perception that Americans hold highly skeptical opinions about social welfare while Scandinavians, including Danes, tend to love the welfare state. Rather, Americans and Danes use similar deep-seated, social instincts to reason about who deserves social welfare despite their exposure to different welfare state cultures: If Danes and Americans perceive welfare recipients as lazy, they oppose social welfare. If the perceive social welfare recipients as making an effect to find work and contribute to society, they are likely to support it.